The mission is designed to test solar sail technology to help NASA develop larger spacecraft in the future using this ...

Instead, it would literally fall into the sun. To stay in such an orbit, a spacecraft would need another constant outward force. A solar sail could provide that continuous push, and the ...

Solar sailing is an innovative concept in spacecraft propulsion that utilizes the pressure of sunlight to propel spacecraft through space. This method offers a unique advantage as it does not ...

It works similarly to how wind pushes against a sail on a boat. So too can sunlight push against a spacecraft to propel it through space. Incidentally, we call these spacecraft solar sails.

Traveling from one star to another is currently impossible to achieve within a human lifetime. But some projects are ...

Novelists, poets, and scientists have envisioned spacecraft powered by solar sails since the 1600s. But now this fanciful concept is actually entering into reality.

The spacecraft’s suite of science instruments will reveal the invisible about the solar system’s most mysterious planet, to better understand the origin and evolution of a planet close to its ...